The bogus demonization of the ‘migrant caravan’

In this Nov. 25, 2018 photo, a Honduran migrant converses with U.S border agents on the other side of razor wire after they fired tear gas at migrants pressuring to cross into the U.S. from Tijuana, Mexico.(AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

On American Thanksgiving weekend, United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents gassed children with chemical weapons at the U.S.-Mexico border at San Ysidro, America’s busiest border crossing.

Social and traditional media were awash in disturbing images of family members fleeing tear gas canisters, pepper spray and flash bang grenades, some running without shoes and in diapers.

A low-flying Customs and Border Protection (CBP) helicopter used the down draft from its rotors to spread the tear gas cloud into a Mexican-side canal where many people were gathered.

President Donald Trump had earlier authorized CBP agents to consider rock-throwing as assault with a firearm. He had been anticipating the arrival at the border of a procession of 5,000 to 7,000 asylum-seekers, all on foot and largely fleeing violence, economic poverty and drought in Honduras and other Central American countries.

The United States has created a backlog at the border by employing a ticketed system of entries and forcing asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico. “We’re not turning people away,” Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told reporters in October. “We’re asking them to wait.”

The president recently defended the Thanksgiving tear gassing, claiming that three CBP agents had been “very badly hurt” by rocks and stones thrown by migrants whose “violence is very strong.” However, his account contradicts an earlier statement by CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, and the CBP’s internal assessment, that “the likelihood of violence directed against CBP personnel along the border is minimal.”

California ponders legal action

These horrific tear-gas attacks have fuelled moral outrage, as well as a probe into the legality of lobbing chemical weapons over the border, with the state of California debating legal action.

We should question how and why the Trump administration is creating a border spectacle that then purports to justify the militarization of the border against this supposed invasion. The administration is repelling the asylum-seekers by any means necessary, forcing them to remain in squalid conditions and denying them access to their rights.

Using military language, as Trump does repeatedly as commander-in-chief, fuels widespread perceptions of migrants as “invaders.” The language creates the false impression of danger. The group becomes seen as a threat that must be contained and pushed out.

It results in a show of power to citizens that their government is in charge of the immigration and asylum systems, and that they should trust and feel protected by these tough officials.

There is a long history of falsely associating foreigners with disease, and this is no exception. Fox News has been reporting that the migrants have “health issues” as talking heads warn falsely that the newcomers will conjure up the long-eradicated smallpox and bring it into the United States.

Javier Hernanez, of Tijuana, Mexico, wears a Christmas hat as he looks out over the border wall separating Tijuana from San Diego on Dec. 7, 2018, in Tijuana, Mexico.(AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

While it’s certainly a fallacy that diseases respect borders, the use of the border as a “cordon sanitaire” to protect the country is a powerful tool to deploy.

Dr. Stephanie J Silverman is the interim associate director of the Ethics, Society, and Law Program at Trinity College, University of Toronto, the Vice-President of the Canadian Association of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS), and an International Adviser with the International Detention Coalition. She works primarily on the socio-legal ethics of incarcerating asylum seekers and other migrants in Canada and the United Kingdom.